Just played half of the adventure from this book tonight.

The first half of the book is setting information on the Terris Dominance in the days of the Final Empire. Geography, culture, some scraps of history, most importantly how Terris actually works under the Empire, how the Breeding Program is managed by the Steel Ministry, and how the Synod manages to preserve Terris heritage in spite of it. Even if you never set foot in the Terris mountains, this will hugely inform the roleplay for a Terrisman character, as it's a background they all share. Covers many topics only hinted at in the books, but in a way that is credible and consistent with the lore.

The second half of the book is the adventure "Justice, like Ash". This is a very fleshed-out adventure worth 8-10 hours of play at least. Scripted in detail with many different options, very well-written dialogues that add texture to the characters, and a dramatic moral dilemma as the climax. I'm running this as an intro to the game, and although it's less typical I think it's more self-sufficient than the primer adventure.

The only thing keeping it from a five-star is the adventure contains some glaring errors in fact - contradicting elements from earlier in the book, or from the source material. Nothing huge but it might trip you as a storyteller, or cause cognitive dissonance for those who know the source material.

• Terris women in Luthadel, that's not supposed to happen.
• Reference to Terrismen born outside Terris, that's also not allowed.
• Travel times between cities misrepresented - looks like the author assumed they had steam boats instead of slow human-tugged boat.

Only the last one is a real problem for the adventure but nothing a good DM can't work around.

It's cute, and I appreciate the effort. I might have gone in a bit of a different direction. But it's fine.

I can get a lot of this infomation from wikipedia or just general searches or books. Get this when it's on sale if your "Google-fu" isn't so good.

Starting to play with my daughter. Imagine something like little witch academia or kiki`s delivery service.

Simple, fun, and focused on what younger kids love about games; this game is almost everything it says it is. My 5 year old loves it as much as my 9 year old.

My children really love the setting and the fun of getting to create and imagine the effects of spells.

I have been into role playing games for a long time. In many way, I forgot how simple the games I started on were. I can certainly recommend this title.

I have one criticism for which I deduct one start.

There are absolutely no rules for resolving a conflict with violence. "But wait" you say, "this is a game for little children." Yes, some of which are little boys. Sometimes little boys want to smack things with sticks and attack the bad guy with a fireball. You can take your thought-control-anti-male-no-aggression-allowed values and stuff them in a conjured port-a-potty. The game, as written, will never please a boy. I have added rules very much like the health system in Zelda. You get 3 hearts. Damage can be 1/2 a heart or more. I made 3 generic spells with various difficulties that do damage. I added rules for attacking something with a weapon. I gave bad guys a few hearts of health. Everything plays great now.

That wasn’t so hard, now was it?

It’s a d20 game. It requires a 3.0 D&D Player’s Handbook for character creation. Its rules suffer from the fads of the time period it came from. Those things aside, this is still the best Spy table top game I have ever played. The balance of complexity and fast resolving rules is perfect. This game uses my favorite chase system I have ever played. The mood and feel is perfect. I have played this game since the year it was released and I still play it from time to time because it still has not been outdone. It’s better than Spycraft 2.0. When Spycraft 3.0 comes out, I'll give it a chance, but many games have come and failed to dethrone this king of spy games.

I play table top with my wife and have three young boys (at the moment of writing this.) As they get older they have shown interest in joining our games. If you know what it’s like trying to explain to your 4 year old why he can’t play Vampire the Masquerade or some other adult table top then perhaps this game has caught your eye as well.

Me, my wife, my 8 year old, and my 4 year old have given this game a spin and I have made some interesting discoveries.

1. This game does a great job connecting to younger children in a fun way. My boys love Coin World and its locations. They love the theme. And they LOVE the simplicity of the game mechanics.
2. This game has helped me understand what my children want form a role play game. My 4 year old was like a fish to water when his character’s teacher asked him to demonstrate potion making by making his favorite potion. My 4 year old loved the attention, went right to work with his toys pretending to make a potion, and loved picking the effect and hearing the description of what happened. He was all smiles when everyone in the room started clapping. I thought to myself, I don’t think this is the first time he has pretended to create a potion, and here he is doing it in front of his family and we are interested and giving him our attention. Connecting to a four year old at that level is not always easy.
3. Because of the game’s simplicity my 8 year old came alive with interest to run a game. He is not intimidated by the mechanics, he gets it, and he wants to explore his creativity as a story maker. He has wanted to run D&D games before but he could never quite pull it off. This game has posed no obstacles for him. He has arrived at his creative outlet.
4. The game’s mood encourages relaxed-just-go-with-it style playing and that really works for my children. If they want Legs, Minecraft monsters, and Link from Zelda to be a part of this world … then done! Link is riding through a Lego forest on an Ender Dragon, and the players go NUTS! And the mood and setting is crafted in a way to where that sort of thing is not disruptive in the slightest. Again, the kinds go freaking NUTS!

The rules are very light. This is almost barely a game and more of a setting. Characters have 3 attributes (body, heart, and mind) and then a couple vague wizard powers that do whatever the player says they do (such as “spellcasting”). And that’s really it. Player says “I wanna do blah”. The story teller says “OK, the difficulty for that will be EASY” (or whatever he thinks.) The player rolls 2d6 and gets the target number or does not. Pass or fail. Modifiers from attributes or powers will only be a 0, +1, or +2. That’s all there is to it. There is a simple experience system that makes sense and works well.

One thing that took me off guard was the way powers are done. There are two classes. They both have the power “Spellcasting”. Most of the powers are vague like that. What does it do? The player just makes up a spell on the spot and the story teller decides if Spellcasting can do that or not and how hard it will be to do. That’s it. Those are the “mechanics.” At first I was kinda put off by it but it turns out this is exactly the reason my 4 year old can play this game. If the “mechanics” were any different he would not be as capable of playing as he is. I wish readers could see how excited he gets. He just starts yelling “I shoot a fireball out of my wand, that chases the bad guy down the hall, and when it hits him it sets his pants on fire, and he runs away really fast, and then slips on water, and there are rubber ducks everywhere!!!!” Then I go, “uhhhh, OK, roll your dice and get an 8 or higher.” It works just like that and I’m learning that it has to when you are 4 years old.

You don’t want this game if you are looking for a game “system”. It’s not that. But whatever it is, it’s a hit with my kids. I would be lying if I did not tell you that I find this game to be the most uninteresting and uninspiring table top game I play but of the games I play with my children it’s not bad. Seeing them have fun diffidently makes it worth it.

One criticism I do have is that this game is not quite as unisex as I would have it. The borders of the pages are purple and there are absolutely no rules for violence of any kind. Evidently you don’t “fight” anything in this game. Uhhh … little boys do not play games void of hitting things. So I had to come up with a system. My system is that everything has three hearts like in a Zelda game that represent life and players can describe attacks that do one heart of damage. A couple of tweaks like that though and the game is little boy approved. I’m sure the authors would scoff at me. They make it pretty clear in the rules that this game has no “losers” or “losing”. rolling eyes That silliness is my only real criticism and I’ll balance that criticism by saying that the 3 nonviolent quests included in the book really did help me to balance our games away from hack and slash and into something that I think is more appropriate for young children. But I’m telling you, when the 4 year old wants to smack something, you better give him some freaking dice to roll!

The base concept of the Origin of the Species series is to enable the use of species other than human in your Spycraft 2.0 game. It doesn't matter why you want them there or how you intend to use them, you'll get all the information you need to create characters - be they player-characters or NPCs. It's up to you to provide a rationale for why they exist, what they are doing and how they actually become material to your game, there's none of the background 'fluff' that many sourcebooks provide. That's good in that it gives you a completely free hand, but the downside is that you have to make it all up for yourself.

In Light of Olympus, various species from Greek mythology are provided - centaurs, gorgons, fauns and tritons. While you have, as already discussed, to decide why they are there in the first place, there's a wide-ranging discussion that provides many alternatives from them being quite normal and integrated into society to the products of crazy experiments by mad scientists or alien invaders that just happen to look like creatures out of classic Greek mythology so got given appropriate names. Of course, you may decide that only one of these species is present, you do not have to take the lot.

The discussion also covers the underlying way in which species have been designed (this discussion is common to all Origin of the Species products). Basically any species is defined by how much it differs from a 'human standard' - some are pretty similar and others are wildly different. The primary example used is that of a medic attempting to treat such a creature. If you have spent the better part of a decade learning how to treat human beings, you might be able to cope reasonably well - at least with basic first aid - with a centaur patient, but a gorgon or triton might well throw you. Of course a medically-trained member of that species is going to be just as baffled by a human patient.

Getting down to business, the core characteristics of each of the four species presented here are listed. Centaurs we probably all know as halfman half horse, tritons are merfolk with a human top half and a fish tail, fauns or satyrs are very similar to humans except they have furry legs, horns and cloven feet, and then there's the gorgons - human except that their hair is replaced with a mass of snakes. Gorgons don't, at least initially, turn you into stone at a glance, but those snakes are venomous. Merfolk don't get around well on land but swim well and breathe underwater.

There are some specialties to choose from and a master class for each species to aspire to, and a wide arrangement of feats most of which are associated with a given species. Gorgons get a new Combat Action, the gaze attack, as well. There is a collection of fully-developed NPCs to give you ideas, as well as all the tables and notes you need to create your own.

If you are intrigued but unsure of how to use these species in your game, the final section - Character Seeds - may give you some ideas. These are very detailed write-ups of example low-level characters with a lot of the work done for you but plenty of scope (and guidance) for customisation. They also show how the character might advance effectively, developing appropriate aspects as they rise in level.

Intriguing ideas, for a campaign that's just that little bit different. Just how committed to Equal Ops is your agency...? Or is it your mission in life to hunt down such aberations for study or extermination?

If you want to add an unusual race to your game, this supplement looks at 'gargoyles'. Now, a gargoyle is an ornamental water-spout commonly found on mediaeval buildings such as cathedrals, so I think they are really talking about 'grotesques', the stone carvings that depict anything from winged horrors to caricatures of local personalities - but be that as it may, what would it be like if such statues came to life and walked among us?

The first part of the book takes you through all the elements of creating a gargoyle character, complete with all the necessary game mechanics. There's a vast array of feats, most of which alas require you to be a gargoyle to take them (some could prove entertaining additions for members of other species...), also expert and master classes for aspiring legends of the gargoyle world.

So, now we can generate gargoyles, what to do with them? Firstly, there's the need to decide how they came to be - magic, perhaps, or alien visitors from another world. Are they inherently hostile or if greeting with kindness would they reciprocate? Have they always been here (hence the myths and legends) or have they only just arrived in our midst? Are they a part of normal society or interacting covertly with us?

Once you've decided these, you can start to think about how they will fit into your campaign. There's some quite detailed discussion that ought to spawn a few ideas as to directions in which to take your game. Most are predicated on gargoyles as NPCs, interacting in various ways with player-character human beings - but it could prove amusing to turn it on its head and have the players play gargoyles attempting to integrate with the world (or spy upon it, invade...). Many other supplements are drawn in, particularly the World of Fire campaign setting which is ideally suited to adding this kind of weirdness. There's a whole organisation set up to keep gargoyles and humans apart, the Stonecutters (why cannot I get the episode of The Simpsons out of my head?) with their own agenda and structure: your characters may be part of it or working against it, or just run in to them once they have discovered that gargoyles are real. Plenty of scope for fun here... and the book rounds out with some NPC gargoyles all ready to get embroiled.

It's a fun, off-the-wall concept which could make for an entertaining campaign.

This supplement is aimed at those who want to bring the paranormal into their Spycraft game, in particular those aspects of it relating to ghosts. After all, ghosts make for good stories and at least some of the techniques used in tracking them down and researching them are common to your average spy. This variant of the game is based on attempts to explain, exploit and control supernatural events such as hauntings.

There is a brief introduction to parapsychology, the 'science' of the study of such phenomena, including its early history and rise to popularity in the media (particularly on TV and in supermarket tabloids). There's also a useful glossary of terminology so you can sound like you know what you are talking about.

Next comes the vehicle for the adventures, Spookbusters Inc, a francised ghost elimination service. Sound familiar? Well, who're ya gonna call? With a sidebar detailing the Sydney, Australia, branch of the franchise, there's a run-down of the likely roles you'll need as you set up operations and some notes on standard operating procedures.

These are followed by some story seeds to get you going... and a sidebar explaining how real-world ghost investigations are considerably different from this style of ghost-busting. Naturally it is up to you what style of game you would like to play.

The next section looks at assembling your team, mostly in game mechanical terms of character abilities and skills, and also at the opposition - the abilities of your average ghost. These are somewhat more intangible, a bit like the ghosts themselves. There's an expert class (for a ghost hunter) and rather confusingly a master class for a ghost itself, the Legendary Ghost. It might have been better to separate this out and deal with characters and ghosts separately.

Then comes a collection of useful feats for both ghosts and ghost-hunters (again rather jumbled up) and the all-important specialist equipment that no well-dressed spook-buster can do without. This includes a 'sonic resonance lance' (don't cross the beams...) and a 'Spook-1' modified Humvee (must be better than a modified hearse with dodgy suspension).

For those who prefer a less-technogical method for dealing with ghosts, there's a section on exorcism, including the necessary game mechanics to model it in your game.

Finally, there's a whole swarm of ghost NPCs with full stat blocks and other notes; as well as ideas for the sort of campaigns you could run using this concept.

Overall it is a fun idea for some light-hearted gaming, although it comes across as somewhat jumbled and would have been better with the character and ghost material separated better. (Worth 4.5 stars, could I but give them - 5-star material with the organisation letting it down a bit!)

The Origin of the Species series of supplements is all about providing options for including non-human races - be they characters or NPCs - in your Spycraft game... but this one takes it to an extreme, providing all that you need to play a 'transmech' or in other words a transformer, a self-aware autonomous robot that is capable of switching form between two appearances, based on those common to the world in which they live. Product of some alien engineering - or even 'extreme science' on Earth - you might think they'd be better suited as invading opponents to your band of spies... but it could be quite entertaining to play one instead.

A transmech is a fully-conscious robotic lifeform, not someone piloting a strange mechanical exoskelton ('mecha'), and its important to remember that especially if you are playing one rather than fighting them. They tend to be large and quite obvious, at least in one of their forms. Naturally, they do not work quite the same as people: they do not eat or breathe and do not heal damage in the same way as a human being does. One form is the classic 'robot' style upright bipedal thing, the 'alt-mode' shape it can shift into (quickly, it's merely a full round action) can be just about anything provided it is at least approximately half the mass of the bipedal form (where the rest goes, nobody knows!). Things like vehicles, objects or even animals are allowed. Objects can include weapons, of course. A vehicle can be 'driven' by someone else, just like any other vehicle, and objects can be used as ordinary objects of that type, which could give rise to some interesting situations.

There are a lot of specialties and feats to enable you to customise a transmech to meet your needs, and copious advice on actually building and playing one. There's also a master class to aspire towards, the Legendary Transmech.

Next comes a good collection of campaign ideas - if there are going to be transmechs in your campaign, you will need to work out what they are doing there! As well as these one-paragraph ideas there is a full-blown campaign seed complete with a new organisation whose purpose is to protect at least some of humanity from encroaching transmechs. To get you started there is a horde of developed transmech NPCs, which provide good examples of what you can do with the basic rules herein.

Finally, there are three ready-to-play scenes involving transmechs. They begin with the party as human operatives in a world that has no knowledge of transmechs... but that doesn't last for long! The second one pits the characters as transmechs arriving on a new world and the final one involves said transmech team finding an ancient artefact and having to deal with it as well as the inhabitants of the world they are on.

It's an interesting concept which could prove the basis of a dramatic campaign if it's the sort of thing that appeals. An intriguing thought would be if a party of human agents find a single transmech who becomes part of their team, but you would need some strong role-players to pull that off successfully.

This supplement is about adding classic fantasy races to Spycraft. Now you may think that dwarves and elves and the like have no place in a contemporary espionage game... but what if, for some reason, they did? You may choose to run an alternate world in which they do exists - have you ever wondered what Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms would be like in modern times? - or perhaps the sudden emergence of such beings is going to be central to your plotline. 'Ordinary' human characters serving as agents of their government might then be tasked with finding the answers to such questions as Where do they come from? Are they a threat? and so on. The potentials are enormous if you are willing to give this a go!

This, of course, presupposes that the fantasy race(s) you choose to incorporate are NPCs. It's also possible for players to have characters of non-human stock, depending on what sort of game you are intending to run, and all the resources needed for the generation of such characters is included here. If non-humans are not integral to your campaign world, an interesting twist would be for players to portray the first few dwarves (or whatever) encountered by regular humans in a world similar to the real one, turning the sort of investigations mentioned in the first paragraph upside down.

The races covered here are dwarf, elf, orc and pech (basically a halfling/hobbit-style race). For each, the modifications from a base standard of 'human' are enumerated, and all the necessary game mechanics are provided to create and run characters of these races. Due to the completely open-ended nature of how they are present in your modern world, however, there is none of the background material common to most fantasy games. This is something you will have to invent for yourself, or turn to fantasy resources to provide.

Each race has an associated master class to aspire to, the Legendary. Before they get that far there are assorted specialties, abilities and feats that can be chosen to reflect the fact that they are not merely humans with pointy ears, short stature or whatever, but a completely different race altogether.

Finally, there are not only sample NPCs but a neat idea called 'character seeds': outline concepts for characters which you can then flesh out to finalise the design of the character that you will play. It's a good way to help steer you through the bewildering array of options available.

I must confess I opened this book thinking that it might not be a particularly good idea, now I'm having ideas for campaigns flooding in! This is one of the delights of reviewing: the opportunity to study concepts that do not initially appeal often reveals hidden gems you might have passed on at a first glance. It won't be a classic James Bond spy game, but used with thought the material herein could create a very enjoyable and memorable game.

Spellbound: The Seer is part of a series that allows the incorporation of magic into a Spycraft 2.0 game. Each volume presents a 'school' of magic and a corresponding base class for those magicians who wish to practise it. In this one, we meet the Seer, described as a student of mystery, master of secrets, and wielder of devastating words of power... if you are running a Spycraft game that allows for the supernatural and magical powers, this could be an interesting and potent addition to the classes available to your players... and probably great fun as an NPC too!

The supplement begins with some general remarks about having magic in your game, beginning with the need to set it as a campaign quality and then choosing which schools of magic exist in your setting. The discussion moves on to some thought-provoking ideas as to how magic might work - what's the source, how do you access and use it, what does it look like and what are the consequences of loosing magic on your world? Once you come up with your own answers to these questions, you have gone a long way to doing the groundwork to embed magic into your game.

There are some differences to 'standard' D20 magic, such as you find in Dungeons and Dragons. You make a skill check to cast each spell, for example, and can cast any spell you know without preparation provided you have sufficient power. Oh, and you can be wearing whatever you want, and various other changes. It makes for a simple and straightforward set of mechanics to underpin spellcasting.

Right, here we are looking at the 'Seer School' of magic, which has three strands or disciplines, being artifice, divination and word. Artifice is about exerting control over machinery, divination is about detecting things and observing even at a distance and word is using the very language of magic to sometimes devastating effect. Thus introduced, all that you need to generate a Seer character is provided. Depending on how you choose to interpret it (and several suggestions are given) a Seer ought to be a source of wise counsel to his colleagues, a practical ideas man for the party. He's an interesting character, with high skill points, a well-rounded class skill list, strong progressions, and a spell list that can create offensive, defensive, knowledge and crafting effects.

Next, the whole process of spellcasting using these rules is explained. Basically, it is a 'spell point' system where the caster expends a set number of points based on the spell he wants to cast. The points he has is based on his level and they refresh every scene (unless he is still maintaining a long-running spell, when he doesn't get the points powering that spell back). Normally spellcasting is quite noticeable (you need a Sleight of Hand check if you try to conceal what you are up to, and they still might notice the mumbling - you have to be able to speak to cast). You also need a 'spell kit' - the equivalent of the infamous 'material components' required of a D&D wizard - although its up to you and the GC to determine just what you need to have with you to cast effectively.

Once you have all that in hand, there are some magic-related feats to choose from and a goodly array of spells... as well as sufficient information on how they are put together to let you construct your own if you are that way inclined. The collection of spells just begs to be tried out and could provide a very interesting spin on an otherwise conventional Spycraft game if you decide to let magic in!

It's an intriguing proposition and one that could make for some memorable ones. Try it if you dare.

This work presents a bizarre fusion of military covert operations and comic book capers and yet - unless you are a die-hard realist - it works! In fact, even if you are a die-hard realist it takes little more than stripping off the silly names and as much of the exotic equipment as you are uncomfortable with to still get it to work.

Opening with a history of the United States Headquarters for Eminent Risk Oversight and a timeline of some of their major operations, we're soon immersed in the current structure and operational landscape of H.E.R.O. Somewhere along the line they have acquired an enemy organisation (over and above normal bogey-men like Communists and more recently terrorists) and this is the main focus of present-day skirmishing. This enemy is called National Military Exports (N.M.E.) and in true comic book style, H.E.R.O. operatives wear green uniforms and N.M.E. ones have blue uniforms. (Does N.M.E. mean something special, I wonder? The only acronym I know is a UK music magazie, the New Musical Express that's always known by its initials...)

Both H.E.R.O. and N.M.E. are presented as Spycraft 2.0 'factions' with all the associated game mechanics - so you can choose a side with ease. If you fancy N.M.E. or just need to know more about them, there's a potted history of how they came about, led by an insane megalomaniac who calls himself the Arch-Enemy. Calls himself that, mark you, it's not an epithet his opponents coined for him! Building N.M.E. up from a small private security contractor to its current state, they are apparently behind such 'incidents' as Three Mile Island, the first Palestinian Intifada, the Ethiopian famine, the Challenger tragedy, the War on Drugs, the Tiananmen Square massacre, Big Hair Bands, the Loma Prieta Earthquake, the Exxon Valdez oil spill and 9/11 - plenty here for a conspiracy theorist to get their teeth into.

Just in case these two factions are not enough, there are three more - the Morrigna Corporation (arms dealers), the Shirobikou clan (ninjas), and the Wreckers (a biker gang) - to spin into the mix. All much smaller, they shift allegiances as it suits them, allies one day, opponents the next... or maybe playing both sides at once.

Next comes all the details you need to build a character who is part of one or another of these factions, but with the apparent assumption that you'll be joining H.E.R.O. As well as lots of build hints, there's new material: new master classes, new feats... and lots of new toys! Much of this material will be of use whether or not you want to run this setting. If you enjoy cinematic action movies and want your characters swooping in on a monowing or a jet pack, this is the place to look. There's a vast array of vehicles and weapons to choose from, complete with brief descriptions and a chart with all the game mechanics you need to use them in play.

This is followed by various tables to help you administrate the faction mechanics Renown and Allegience. There are rank charts for each of the five factions so that you may measure your progress in them.

Then we get down to the real stuff: how to run a 'Real American H.E.R.O.es' campaign. It needs to be cinematic, larger-than-life and a bit black and white - clear distinctions between the Good Guys and the Bad Sorts. Big threats, high stakes and big action scenes in thrilling locations. Themes, objectives, a 'diabolical plot generator' (yes, really!) and even a system for creating handy McGuffins are explored. Finally, there's a whole bunch of NPCs from all five factions to sling into the melee.

Taken in a spirit of fun, this larger-than-life approach can prove very entertaining. Don't try and take it seriously - if you want to game that way, mine this for the bits you want and put them into a different setting. All good fun...

The Firebrand is an interesting expert class, one that would be rather fun to play if you have the gift of the gab because at the core, this character is a rabble-rouser. He knows all the right buttons to press to get people worked up - and if he gets tired of espionage he could always retire to politics!

There are plenty of roles such an individual could fill, and some are suggested here. However, many might be better suited to an NPC unless your campaign is structured carefully to accommodate your Firebrand. From revolutionary to political activist or corporate raider (just a few of the suggested roles) it's quite easy to see how to weave a plot around him, less easy to know just what to do with him if your plot is about something else entirely.

Understandibly, the core attribute is Charisma, with Wisdom and Intelligence following along behind. There are plenty of interesting and useful class abilities to fit the Firebrand up as a figurehead that can sway the hearts and minds of those who hear him.

The game mechanics you'll need to run this character are provided: the usual table plus suggested feats and three new ones - the 'Cameraderie' tree which is used to enhance group combat by letting members of the team support each other better. There are also ideas for building the character, including different sorts of Firebrands depending on their origins - one who started life as a Pointman might have a completely different approach than one who was a Fixer or a Scientist, for example.

It is an interesting concept, used well in adventures that will make use of the Firebrand's particular talents it could prove memorable.